Management teams at the Pueblo and Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plants continue to work to reduce risk to the workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The Blue Grass supercritical water oxidation system, originally intended for treatment of a specific plant secondary waste, will no longer be used.
The Sept. 23 meeting to provide Blue Grass chemical weapons destruction updates to the public will be held virtually.
Fifty percent of the mustard agent in the stockpile of chemical weapons stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky has been destroyed as of Sept. 1.
Technical experts in Alabama used fuzes recently removed from rocket warheads to test processing parameters and timing for the Blue Grass Static Detonation Chamber units in mid-August.
Experts successfully removed fuzes from 30 M56 rocket warheads containing VX chemical agent stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot in late July.
Munitions handlers and a mechanic exchanged air filters for the building that temporarily stores the mustard munitions awaiting destruction in the Static Detonation Chamber Aug. 3.
Technicians are decontaminating and cleaning the Blue Grass facility following the end of the GB 8-inch projectile campaign in May.
“We’re taking care of the areas of the plant that were contaminated with liquid agent or high-agent vapor, mainly the Munitions Washout System room and the Agent Neutralization System room,” said Carl Reagan, operations support manager, Bechtel Parsons Blue Grass.
The Kentucky Chemical Demilitarization Citizens’ Advisory Commission and Chemical Destruction Community Advisory Board meeting scheduled for June 10 will not take place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 8-inch GB agent-filled projectiles safely stored and destroyed on the Blue Grass Army Depot originated at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado in the 1960s.